This past Monday night, after watching a few primetime shows, I decided that I was going to do something that I’d put off for years: see if I could find out what was on the vanity cards for Chuck Lorre Productions. A quick Google search brought me to a page of hundreds of these cards, all available for my reading pleasure, able to be viewed at speeds slower than the 1.5 seconds that non-TiVo viewership affords. And something on one of the early cards (#5, I think) caught my attention:
Weltschmerz is a German word which loosely means “world suffering deriving from the inevitability of reality to never match up with our expectations.”
Sure, there’s more, but it relates to an episode of Dharma and Greg. And who would want to read about that show?*
But I digress.
Each of us has experienced weltschmerz in our own way, be it through a vacation, relationship, new purchase, friendship, or a job. But the problem of weltschmerz arises when we let fantasy overtake reality.
When starting something new, people have a tendency to romanticize things. That’s where the “starry-eyed newbie versus the bitter, crusty old-timer” cliché comes from, after all. As we anticipate things, we build them up, only to have reality come crashing down like an anvil in a Warner Brothers cartoon.
So how do you keep your spirits high?
As much as I’d love to advocate the use of another fine German export, specifically one in a category that has been called the “cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems,” here’s a simpler method: readjust your reality.
It’s not so much that your expectations will be diminished; as unfortunate as it is, there’s nothing that can be done to keep them from falling. Rather, change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change. Corny, I know, but taking more pride in your work and relishing the challenges that it presents you will make the job that much more bearable. By finding long-term happiness in your job, rather than its novelty, your new position, or even your co-workers, you will be able to be more productive and will limit your exposure to existentialist German afflictions.
*Probably a lot of people, actually, as it was on the air for five seasons, but the question was meant to be rhetorical.
